


Do you wish I was different ?

by celestecalixte



Category: Euphoria (TV 2019)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:41:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29158329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestecalixte/pseuds/celestecalixte
Summary: Read Rue and Jules' story unfolds as they make their way through life in the aftermath of their parting at the train station.
Relationships: Rue Bennett & Jules Vaughn, Rue Bennett/Jules Vaughn
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	1. Trouble may not last always, but sometimes it feels like they do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was not someone you would ask if they’re lost because it was obvious she was and couldn’t be found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone ever reads this, first of all thank you, and I hope you will enjoy it :)

She always knew it would end up like that. Well maybe not exactly that way, but at the end of the day it was all the same. She had always pictured very clearly, too clearly, that one day Jules would be gone and she would stay. She knew it from the very beginning. It used to be a quiet feeling she could turn off if she tried hard enough, then it became this constant dread always running in the back of her mind “she’s going to leave you, she will, you won’t be able to do anything about it, it won’t last, she’s on her way, you’re not part of the plan”. Eventually it happened, as she had always known it would. In her imagination it wasn’t exactly like that, but it was close enough. Anyway the result was the same. Jules was gone, while she was the big loser staring at her feet with tears in her eyes and glitter rubbed all over her cheeks. She was waiting for death to hold her in this shitty train station, waiting for anything to happen that would make the pain go away. It was more than she could take. For a split second, she contemplated the idea of throwing herself on the rails, then remembered it was midnight and Jules had taken the last train. She laughed, picturing herself lying on the rails, in the freezing cold, waiting for a fucking train that wouldn’t arrive until the morning. It was like waiting for her to be enough for Jules, to be a reason that would make her stay. It meant waiting in the dark for the night to end, knowing damn well that there were a lot of chances that she wouldn’t be alive to witness the sun rise. A man passing by heard her laughing, all alone, and started to walk faster, like she had already begun to be this kind of failure society both rejects and fears. She realized that she must have indeed looked strange, with the funky bright clothes Jules had made her wear, and the makeup smeared all over her face, in the middle of the night, with no suitcase, or anything that would make sense of her presence here. She had no business standing there, in the cold, the man knew that right away. She was a lost soul, not dangerous, maybe a bit creepy, but not someone you would want to help. Not someone you would ask if they’re lost because it was obvious she was and couldn’t be found. Rue stayed like that for a while. She wasn’t laughing anymore, there wasn’t anything to laugh about, and she realized that there never had been and she shouldn’t have giggled in the first place. It was scary, it was pathetic, it was a sign that she was turning crazy. She began to count the cigarette butts on the floor, not for the time to pass faster - she had nothing to expect, why would she want the time to go faster ? - but for the voices in her head to shut up. She started hearing the voices a while back. It wasn't dementia or anything, at least she hoped so. It was just the train of her thoughts that would become too loud sometimes, when she was stressed out, when she was considering using because she couldn’t bear all the noise anymore. She was now, at this very moment, considering to use. So she resumed counting, angrily, mumbling to herself louder and louder. She wouldn’t do that, she knew better. She just needed to divert her focus, to chase the idea and the whiny bitchy voices from her head and it would be fine. She would feel better in the morning. 

She wasn’t delusional, it was not like she was picturing she would wake up in Jules’ bed to realize all this was nothing but a bad dream and Jules was still there, loving, caring, bubbly even though it’s seven in the morning. She was just considering that, certainly, in the morning, Jules would call her. Maybe she would express regrets over leaving her all alone at the train station. Rue would tell her it broke her heart and she thought about relapsing but didn’t because she knew better, always had, even if Jules were to hurt her. Jules would be so proud and relieved to see that Rue was stronger than she thought, and could manage the night unattended without trying to hurt herself. She would say she had done a lot of thinking, and that taking this train was a mistake. She shouldn’t have, she was a bit drunk, got taken away in the euphoria of the moment but eventually realized, as the train was leaving the station, that Rue had been right all along. It wasn’t a good idea after all. She was still a minor, she hadn't even graduated high school yet, her dad would worry himself to death, and most importantly she would miss Rue too much. She couldn’t live a life where she wasn’t by her side. She was the reason she would come back as soon as she could. While talking on the phone with her, she had even already started to book tickets to come back to town first thing. She just couldn't wait to hold her in her arms and say sorry, say I love you, say I hate everyone else in the world but you, say I won’t ever leave you, drown her in reassurances of all kinds that she truly meant and wasn’t just saying for Rue to stay clean. Yes, Jules would call her, first thing in the morning, and say all these things. Rue wouldn’t go to sleep to make sure she wouldn’t miss the call. She would wait because she knew it would go exactly as she had pictured.

Well, maybe Rue was a bit delusional after all because, of course, Jules never did anything of the above, and really why would have she ? When Rue got tired of counting and her breath resumed, she biked home. It was a cold night, but not that cold considering we were in December. Rue was shivering but she didn’t really know if it was from the pain or just a natural reaction to fresh air when you’re only wearing a sparkly burgundy top with no jacket in the middle of winter. She didn’t know and mostly did not care. Her body was still alive but she felt dead inside. When it started to rain she didn’t notice. Her face was already wet from tears and snot anyway. She didn’t really think of anything. She didn’t play in her head the scene of Jules’ departure, or the last words they shared, because she wanted this reality to become a blur, to evaporate into the cold night so that the memory could be gone in the morning. She already knew it wouldn’t but still wanted to give the method a try. While biking, Rue passed her high school gym where the formal had taken place a few hours ago. She had a flash and briefly remembered walking in with Jules by her side. It felt like she was making the scene up, like it had not really happened, or so long ago that it was almost unrealistic she could remember it so well. It already belonged to another life that wasn’t hers anymore. She closed her eyes and went faster, she didn’t reopen them until the gym was out of sight. On the side of the road some students she barely knew were walking, very slowly because of their inebriated state. They probably didn’t secure a drive while they were still in their right mind, and seemed like they did not care at all. They were singing, too loud, too happily for Rue to bear. If she could close her eyes, she couldn’t make the voices go away. Not theirs, not hers. The voices stayed until she got high. It was the only moment of pure silence, a moment she used to relish so much when she was still using. But she wasn’t anymore. Her sobriety mattered to her and she didn’t want to fuck it up. Actually her sobriety didn’t really matter to her, but she knew it did to the ones she loved. Her mother, her little sister, Jules. Well, she guessed now Jules wouldn’t give a fuck if she were to snort a big thick line of cocaine. But she wouldn’t. Jules wasn’t the center of the world, and she didn’t need her approval to stay clean. Well, maybe she did but it was a bad idea to let that kind of thoughts infiltrate her mind in the state she was in. She continued to bike, until the drunken voices faded away and she was left with the calm of the night and a faint wind pushing in her direction. She had always had a mom and a sister who she loved very much. However, she hadn’t always been willing to stay clean. Actually this willingness was quite recent. It hadn’t dawn on her that she needed to stop using when she overdosed and almost died six months ago, it didn’t either when she spent the summer at a rehab facility with other fucked-ups just like her, it still didn’t when she went back to school and realized everyone there genuinely thought she had died over the summer break. No, the one moment where she knew that from now on she’d be willing, really willing, to put an effort in her recovery, is when Jules asked her to. Her mom had been begging her for years to get help, her thirteen-year-old sister had found her clinically dead in her room, drowning in her vomit, but those were not the moments when she thought to herself “well that’s it, I have a disease and I’m getting it cured”. No. She only really considered it - and knew this time she would not lie and play games, she would be consistent with all the steps she needed to take to stop doing drugs - when Jules cupped her face between her hands, looked her dead in the eyes and said to her “I’m not trying to become best friends with someone who’s gonna fucking kill themselves”. This is when she knew she loved Jules more than she loved drugs, and if it meant stopping to take them for Jules to become her best friend, then fuck it, she would. 

The following morning when she woke up, she couldn’t remember how she had gotten home. She couldn’t remember the last bits of her ride home, she couldn’t remember where she had let her bike, she couldn’t remember struggling to get her keys to open the door, she couldn’t remember crashing in her bed with her clothes still on. She couldn’t but she must have done so because she was now lying on her stomach, hurt by the tight stripes of her top, while a ray of sun was hitting her straight in the eye. It was a cold bright winter sun that was already high in the sky and she figured it must have been at least eleven. She had slept like a dead rock, completely passed out, and now she basically felt like shit. Her whole body hurt like a bitch, like she had been beaten up in her sleep. Her eyes were swollen shut and she couldn’t bring herself to open them up, while still very well feeling the discomfort on the bright sun kissing her closed eye-lids. Her first thought, like it had been every morning for the past couples of weeks, was for Jules. She couldn’t really analyze this thought. She wasn’t reminiscing about last night's events, it felt like even while she was asleep she hadn’t forgotten and didn’t need a few seconds of fog to reconnect the dots, she sadly remembered everything that occurred with Jules all too well. It wasn’t a thought of anger or resentment either. It was not really sadness, even though she of course felt sad about it. No, it was actually simpler, more evident and pure. She just woke up and thought of Jules. There weren't any feelings - bad or good - attached to that thought. The thought was naked. Jules just happened to be on Rue’s mind when she gained consciousness back that morning. Jules. She was there. She didn't need to summon her essence for her to be just there, like she had been waiting all this time for Rue to finally wake up. She kept her eyes closed and smiled. A smile of pure happiness. If asked, she wouldn’t have been able to explain what brought her so much joy, there wasn’t actually anything joyful about the situation. She was just feeling the moment, like she only now realized that a link connected her to Jules’ deep core and that maybe that link couldn’t be cut because, even though Jules was now gone, she still felt it more than ever. It was the spirituality of the experience that enchanted her. It was the genuine relief of knowing she couldn’t be deprived of that mysterious and magical intimacy she shared with Jules. It was like she didn’t really need her to be physically present to feel close to her. It made her feel so good. It made the worries wash away like a lazy wave on the hot sand. She thought to herself “nothing bad can really happen as long as I have this power, the power of holding her close even when she’s nowhere near to be held”. Then the wave brutally washed over her newfound feeling of relief and the hurt came in, silently yet confidently, like a sharp pain had just entered her body and made it its own. Rue's body now belonged to the pain, she had lost it in a second. The pain had planted its flag on its new territory, claimed it as if it knew Rue would not fight back. It must have sensed it and it was right, Rue didn’t. 

After that night Rue kind of stopped to talk. People took a while to notice but eventually did and started to feel weird about it. Sure Rue had never been the bubbly type to chat with strangers at bus stops, but still. It seemed like not a word would now escape her lips, unless it really needed to. And even then, Rue would now always talk in this faint and lifeless voice that felt like she was talking to you from the afterlife and at the same time fighting for the words to come up audibly enough so that she wouldn’t have to make the effort to repeat them. It was just like she had retreated from any form of human social interactions, even the most meaningless, automatic and absurd ones. At first people were uncomfortable with it, they worried. Or at least they said they did, and made sure everybody else heard them expressing their worry. “What’s happening Rue ? I’ve been worrying about you. You’re acting really weird these days.” Yeah she did. And it was none of their business. Thankfully she already knew back then that they would stop to care even before their fake concern would begin to be plain annoying and not even funny anymore. She was right, people eventually stopped asking questions and just went with it. She was a bit strange, no one would really hear the sound of her voice anymore, so what ? We’ve seen stranger things, not to mention she had always been a bit weird, this kid. So they just went with it, and Rue was left alone for good. Her lack of talking had actually a lot more advantages that she would have suspected at first. She started to train her other senses more, just like a blind person has a better ear, or can feel the taste of things like no one else can. She began to notice little things she hadn't been paying attention to before. It was not an exaggeration to say that her vision of life had diametrically shifted. She was not happy, she couldn’t say she was unhappy either. It was just a new way to see things, to live life. The only way she had figured out since Jules had left. She wasn’t using. She was a bit surprised by that herself. It was as if she had invented a new way to escape her own dissatisfactions without the crutch of drugs. Dissatisfactions didn’t come near the level of despair she was feeling at first, of course. But now she wasn’t desperate anymore, like she had run out of fucks to give. Nothing mattered, especially not her. And there was a thrilling freedom about this way of seeing things. If nothing mattered, and especially not her, there was nothing to be done about it, there was nothing to wish for, there was nothing to be remorseful about, there was nothing to hope. It was simply as it was, and trying to act on things now seemed like the most ridiculous thing she could ever do. It was truly liberating. She didn’t have to pretend anymore. She didn’t have to get better, she didn’t have to have dreams - whatever dreams now mean in the world she was living in - she didn’t have to make plans for the future, she didn’t even have to fake some kind of ambitions or goals, or things she’d die to achieve. There was really nothing left. Nothing mattered. Her being alive or dead didn’t even matter. She was always surprised when she’d wake up in the morning, like there had been some sort of misunderstanding. Her life didn’t matter, she was the most pointless person to ever grace the face of the earth, why would she still be waking up like it would now magically be the time she decided to wake up from her coma and seize the fucking day ? It made no sense to her. She then went on to realize that her life was so meaningless that she wasn’t important enough to die. She would have to wait like any other insignificant human for her time to come. It wasn’t like she had become religious or anything. She didn't wait for a sign from God to tell her that the joke was getting old and he would now seriously consider putting her to rest. No, she didn’t care enough to buy this shit. it was more like she finally gathered that her death wouldn’t be on her time or terms and she would just now realize that it was one more thing she didn’t care about. She was not longing for the afterlife, she was pretty sure it would feel as dull as her present life now did. And it all came back in a circle because all these realizations were actually the very reason she was not using anymore. The euphoria that drugs used to bring her would now feel fake, counterfeit, she didn’t even have to try again to be sure, she just knew. She didn’t see the point of taking drugs anymore, that’s about how lifeless she had become. And it was actually rather pathetic that she had all this time led a life which made the scale of her liveliness evaluable by whether or not she still cared about drugs. But things were the way they were and she couldn’t pretend like she didn’t actually used to lead that exact kind of life. It was who she was, or at least who she has been for most of her teenage years. She didn’t think anything about it, it just did not interest her that much anymore. Nothing did.


	2. Have fun in the city

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was like Rue could see her, in all her contradictions, and loved her, not despite, but because of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little update : Jules' pov this time. I hope you'll enjoy.  
> NB : the chapter's title is actually from the Grace VanderWaal's song 'The City' which I really like and thought captured the vibe of this chapter well.

As soon as the train left the station, Jules felt like the gigantic weight that had been resting on her shoulders for months had just lifted. At the same time, her heart was heavy because she knew her decision to leave for real, leaving Rue behind, would inflict a great amount of pain to someone she loved. She knew Rue would be upset but also secretly wished that it would give her the chance to realize that she could take care of herself even when she wasn’t around. It may have been an unrealistic wish but she truly believed that Rue could benefit from some time apart. If it had only been up to Jules, they would have stayed together of course, they would have taken that train hand in hand and ran away together just like Rue had suggested they should at the winter formal. However she could sense that Rue had grown more and more tedious about her resolution as they were approaching the platform. She first began to slow down and eventually stopped in her tracks. Jules thought she was having second thoughts, but nothing she wouldn’t be able to brush off. She was wrong. Rue didn’t want to leave anymore. She kept talking about her mom, and her sister, saying that her meds were home and she couldn’t go a day without them. Jules was annoyed with what seemed like material aspects that could be taken care of so easily, things they shouldn’t even worry about. Obviously she understood Rue was scared to hurt her family, but it wasn’t like they were going on a witness-protection-program, they could always call to say they were safe. This is what she told Rue, but nothing could shake her off her frenetic rent. She didn’t even make sense anymore, and Jules kind of stopped listening to search for the time of departure of the next train. It was about six minutes away and would soon be here. She turned to Rue and tried to talk sense into her. 

“Listen Rue, it’s gonna be okay, we will figure it out together I swear. For now you just gotta trust me. It’s gonna be amazing.” 

Rue couldn’t even meet her eyes. She was silently crying, she had finally stopped talking and just looked so lost and helpless it made Jules’ heart sink. 

“I just feel like it’s a bad idea” she said quietly, before her voice cracked.

“But it was your idea, and it was a fucking great idea” Jules replied, eyes full of hope that Rue would let herself get convinced by the energy and blind trust in life that defined Jules. 

She went quiet, her eyes shimmering with glitter that had been partially washed off by her tears. Jules didn’t know what to do so she just lay her hand on her cheek and begged her. Rue froze. Her cheeks were cold, and at the same time hot and salty from her tears.  
“I can’t do that Jules, let’s just head home”.

It was then that it dawned on Jules that it wasn’t an option. She had never herself consciously wished to leave this town before, but ever since Rue had mentioned the possibility to do so like an hour ago, it had become the only thing in the world she wanted to do. She needed to do it. It was like her own life was at stake, and if she were to stay one more minute in this place she would die. Literally die. It was not figuratively speaking. She actually felt like she was in great danger and needed to escape. It was now or never, and she began to think that it would probably be now for her, and never for Rue. And even if it killed her to even think about it, she knew deep down that she wouldn’t hesitate to hop on that train even if Rue decided not to follow. It made her sick. How could she be such a bad friend ? Rue was everything to her and still here she was, ready to leave her behind without second thoughts. Actually she did have second thoughts, but she could also picture herself overcoming them to accomplish what she needed to do. Just minutes ago she had asked Rue to trust her, and she was now betraying her in the worst way possible. She closed her eyes and heard the train entering the station. 

Her head resting on the window, she slowly drifted to sleep. She had a bitter taste in her mouth and was trying very hard not to think about Rue. Instead, she began to list the movie scenes in which the main character would put their head on the window of a train or a bus to reflect on their past choices. A timeless cliche she felt she was now a part of, almost against her will. Jules didn’t know where she was headed. The city was vague and it wasn’t like she had had time to think a plan through. She figured she would just sort it out once she’d be there, she knew the vibrant heart of the city would inspire her and she would be okay. This was that kind of trust she wished she could have instilled in Rue. Sadly, Rue always tended to drown in her own insecurities, and even though she didn’t mind getting herself in danger when it came to drug use, she just didn’t have enough faith in life to believe, even for a minute, that she could put the past behind her and really be happy. Jules, on the other hand, had always had that kind of belief, even when she was in the darkest of places. She just knew that life had something good in store for her. She had that feeling of importance. It wasn’t cockiness or a desire to stand out, she didn’t consider herself to be above anyone else, she just had that strong sense of what she deserved and it helped her to keep going when nothing else would. She couldn’t bring herself to think that life was contained in this very moment when she felt like shit. Everybody had bad days, she had had her fair share, but it was pointless to limit what the world had to offer to these moments when everything felt hopeless. She wasn’t the melancholic type, she knew better than to wallow in self pity and make herself miserable about just anything. She wasn’t implying that Rue was that kind of person, but it couldn’t be denied that she was a vulnerable individual, not designed to experience happiness easily. Sometimes, Jules would get mad at Rue for it. She tried to hide it but didn’t always succeed. She knew Rue was an addict, she knew her dad had died when she was just a child, she knew she was incredibly uneasy with herself and uncomfortable in her own skin, but sometimes Jules felt like Rue liked that about herself. As if her inability to take the good life had to offer was proof that she was aware, while everyone else beside her wasn’t, and that she was the only one who could see how fucked-up the world actually was. Of course the world was fucked-up. Of course it was a shit show. Jules had noticed it from a very young age, from the first moment of her life actually. She, out of everyone, had one of the best reasons to be aware of it. At the instant she was born, the universe had already started throwing shit at her face, it had made her come to the world in the wrong body. There was no bigger injustice, was there ? But instead of making this hardship the reason why she hated the world and hated herself even more, Jules took it as evidence that everything could be fixed if you wanted it hard enough. Maybe Rue didn’t, and maybe that was her unique problem after all. Instead of taking the bad to make it good, she clung to the bad to prove a point that didn’t need to be proved in the first place. Jules didn’t like to think of Rue that way because, just like the shitty moments in life didn’t sum up life itself, Rue was so much more than her illness or her tendency to pessimism. She was a true light, she just felt more comfortable when it was faint rather than bright. She had that genuine kindness in her that was impressive considering how she felt towards life. Her disease hadn’t made her bitter. She was naturally kind to people. It wasn’t that fake kindness that tasted like maple syrup, it was a profound good in her which made Jules think she could never hurt anyone. And mostly, Jules liked the way Rue would look at her. It made her feel warm, loved, special. It was like Rue could see her, in all her contradictions, and loved her, not despite, but because of them. She saw it all, and not only wanted her still, but didn’t wish Jules was any different. It was her uniqueness that had drawn Rue to her, that made her love her with all her heart. And Jules knew that, even though Rue had never told her in actual words. She liked that about Rue, that she could be read like an open book. She was hypersensitive. Jules knew that word was thrown around carelessly these days. Everyone was now an empath, everyone was more sensitive than the norm, for many people it wasn’t actually the case. But for Rue it was. It was also the reason why she hurt so much. She felt everything too intensely, it was rare and beautiful to witness. 

While she was thinking about what made Rue the person she was, Jules felt even worse about the way she had treated her. She had just said that Rue loved her for exactly who she was, and yet she was herself incapable to do the same for Rue. Rue was too dark, Rue felt too much, Rue didn’t trust her enough, Rue was too scared of happiness, Rue was a liability. She really doubted that Rue was as harsh on Jules as she was on her, and it was not fair. It was as if Jules kept winning and Rue always ended up losing. The game was rigged from the start, Rue never stood a chance. And yet she loved her so much, like she had never loved anyone else. She may have left her, but in any way was that because she had stopped to love her or stopped to care. It was actually the opposite, she loved her so much she had to leave. She had had this urge, this instinct of survival for herself, but also for Rue. It wasn’t planned, but what had happened at the train station was actually the first time in their relationship that Rue had asserted herself and had not let Jules change her mind and decide for both of them. Jules couldn't really tell for now in what ways was that a good thing, but she had a feeling that it was. It was a big step for both of them and, whatever the future would hold, she knew Rue would always be in her life. Whether that’d be physically, or by all the things that Rue had brought her, and that had kept lingering in her for the longest time. Rue was unforgettable, and there would always be a place for her, with her name carved on it, in Jules’ heart. She didn’t need a lip tattoo to remember Rue, the print she had left on her was already indelible.

***

The next morning when she woke up, Jules suddenly felt like she was going to be sick. The inside of her mouth tasted like vomit and she couldn’t breathe. She tried to get up only to realize she couldn’t. It was like all her vital energy had been drained. She was lying down, not able to move, glued to the bed like some insect pinned on the board of a collectionner. She started to get scared and tried to at least feel her legs. They were sore and inert. It was then she realized that she was not wearing her clothes from the formal anymore. She was naked, only covered by a baby blue blanket and a T shirt she knew wasn’t hers. Jules’ mind started to race. How had she ended up there ? Sleeping in some random attire and resting in a bed that didn’t feel familiar. She put a hand to her forehead, closed her eyes, and released a big sigh to make all the tensions go away. When she opened her eyes, Rue was there. She froze. It didn’t make sense for Rue to be there. She tried to collect her memories of what had gone down the night before. She recalled the winter formal she had attended, with Rue as her date. She remembered drinking a bit too much, but nothing that could explain the state she was in right now. She focused so hard her jaw clenched. She then had a flash of her getting on a train, while Rue was standing on the platform, crying it seemed. She closed then opened her eyes again and Rue was still here. What was happening ? 

“Slept tight ?” Rue said while brushing a string of Jules’ hair beside her ear.

Jules couldn’t reply for she was feeling sick again. In a sudden outburst, she jumped to her feet, grabbed a bin that was resting at the end of the bed, and threw up. She stayed panting over the bin for a few minutes before she started to regain composure. She was actually feeling better now that she was empty. She suddenly felt two cold hands stroking her sides tenderly. 

“Poor thing, you feel better ?” 

It wasn’t Rue’s voice, thought Jules immediately. However, the voice did remind her of someone, but she couldn’t remember who. Jules was starting to think she hadn’t woken up and was still dreaming, because none of what was happening made any sense to her. The two hands then made their way up to her chest, and placed themselves naturally on her breasts. The unexpected touch made her jump and she turned around. 

“Anna !”

“Yeah silly, you seem surprised ? You were fantasizing about some other hands maybe ?”

Jules didn’t answer. She was dumbfounded. She rubbed her temples and asked Anna for a glass of water, she had still bits of vomit underneath her tongue. She heard the water running from another room and turned back to the bed she had slept in. The blankets were messy, she noticed her clothes from the night before scattered on the floor next to the right side of the bed. She went to pick them up and hold her pants to her nose. They smelled like cold cigarettes. She dropped them before she would get sick again. She did pick her blouse up though, and brought it to her heart. It smelled like a mixture of green apple, moisturizer, and some masculine scent she couldn't have named but reminded her of an after shave. It smelled like Rue. She laughed at the idea of Rue secretly shaving a beard, then sniffed the fabric again. The smell was strangely comforting. 

“What are you laughing about ?”

Anna was standing behind her, extending her a glass of fresh water. She had served it in a wine glass, which made Jules smile. It was exactly something Anna would do. 

“Nothing” She replied quietly “I was just thinking about last night.” 

“Yeah tell me about it. What the actual fuck was all that about ? Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy to have you, but I can’t really grasp what made you visit me in the middle of the night. I wasn’t really expecting company.”

Jules sat down on the bed. She didn’t know what to tell Anna. Up until five minutes ago, she wasn’t even aware she had crashed at her place, even though it did make sense in retrospect. It wasn’t like Jules knew a lot of people in the city. She must have found herself all alone at two in the morning, with no money, standing in the middle of a deserted train station, cold, and probably still a bit drunk. Of course she would have ringed Anna. She was lucky she had answered her phone. Jules really hadn’t thought things through when she had taken that train last night. She now couldn't even remember how she could have thought it was a good idea.

“You want to eat something ? I can fix you a speciality of mine that will make your headache go away.” Anna offered while putting her head on Jules’ shoulder from behind. 

The only time Jules had met Anna, she remembered lying on a bed and Anna straddling her to do her makeup. In that position she hadn’t noticed that Anna was actually way smaller than her. She was standing on her toes and still barely reached Jules’ bare shoulder.

“How do you know I have a headache ?” 

“Just a wild guess” she grinned, her head buried in Jules’ neck.

Jules walked to the bed and let herself fall into a pile of dirty clothes. She felt exhausted. Anna went to the kitchen which was behind the wall, the apartment being as small as one would expect a ridiculously expensive apartment in the city to be. Anna continued to talk to Jules from the kitchen, but Jules wasn’t really paying attention. Her head turned to the side, she was watching the gray sky through the window while her thoughts were drifting far away from Anna’s voice. 

“Who is Rue ?” 

Jules lifted herself up on one elbow. The sole mention of the name had been enough for her to snap out of her daydream. 

“She’s my friend from home. Why are you asking ?”

“You kept mumbling her name in your sleep, like the bitch owed you money or sum.” 

“She doesn’t. Actually that would be me” Jules replied, feeling uneasy.

“You owe the chick some cash ? Well, if I were you, I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s not like you’re likely to run into her here.”

Jules sighed. Actually, she ran into her every time she closed her eyes. And even when she opened them, she needed to wait for her vision to focus again so that the image of Rue would float away. Damn, she had even thought for a minute that Rue had been guarding her sleep and was sitting right across the room when she woke up. Obviously she knew it was impossible, and still, her first conscious sight after a night of sleep was the gentle smile of Rue halfway hidden under her hair. Jules buried herself under the covers. The smell of the cooked food had made her nauseous again. She wondered what Rue was doing at the moment. She reached for her phone on the nightstand. She would text her just to make sure she had gone home safely last night. Just a text. She started typing on the device, only to give up on the idea and throw her phone to the other side of the bed. It wasn’t fair of her to randomly check on Rue as if nothing had happened the night before. It was selfish to pretend everything was okay between them. Sure, for Jules everything truly was okay, but she knew Rue would be mad at her, at least for a few days, because she had chosen to leave without her. Jules should just respect that and give her some time alone. Rue would resent her for a couple of days, and then Jules would call her and she would apologize. It was the best thing to do given the context. While making the decision, Jules extended her arm under the bed, and lifted up what she had been looking for. Her strapless blouse from the night before. She gently brought it to her face, soaking herself in the delicate smell of Rue that had impregnated the fabric. She felt content, completely relaxed, and began to drift to unconsciousness. When Anna called her from the kitchen, she had already fallen asleep. If she could not text Rue, that didn’t keep her from dreaming of her.


	3. Good riddance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rue didn’t blind herself on purpose, she just repeated the mistake to think everything that made her happy had to be good for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lexi's pov ! I hope you'll enjoy.

Lexi wasn’t sleeping well these days. Every night in her bed, just when she was about to close her eyes, she always found herself thinking about Rue. As soon as this thought had entered her brain, she just laid there, unable to think about anything else. Rue wasn’t doing well, and it was an understatement to say so. It had begun around the time that had followed the winter formal. For a week after that party, Rue hadn’t been to school. Lexi had rung her several times but she wouldn’t answer her phone, so she had gone by her house to find out what was up with her. Her mother had let her in and made her a coffee. Lexi had brought Rue her homework from all the classes they shared, and even the homework from the classes they did not share. Her mom took it, thanked Lexi, and said Rue was lucky to have a friend like her. Lexi shrugged. Apparently, Rue had been sick. Her mother stayed pretty vague about it, and Lexi was too scared to ask further questions. But things weren’t adding up. Even if Rue had been sick, how sick must have she been for Lexi to not even be able to say hi to her in her bedroom. Rue’s mom hadn’t offered her to do so. Several times while they were chatting, Lexi’s eyes diverted and longed around in the direction of Rue’s bedroom. The house was completely silent. An uncomfortable silence that was reminiscent of the times of grief. Gia mustn't have been home. Rue’s mom looked really tired, worried even. She had dark circles under her eyes, and spoke in a very low voice.

“But... is Rue actually okay ?” Lexi asked sheepishly.

“Yeah, yeah… She’s fine. She’s just feeling feverish, she’ll be back to school after winter break.”

“Isn’t that in like three weeks ?”

“She needs to rest. She’ll feel better soon.”

Lexi went quiet. She didn’t know what to say. Obviously something was wrong, but she knew her mom wouldn’t confide in Lexi. She wished she could just tell her the truth, but somehow she was convinced no such thing would happen today. So she just smiled, said everyone at school was wishing Rue a quick recovery (which was of course a lie, Lexi might as well have been the only person to notice Rue had been missing) and for Rue to get better soon. Her mom noded the whole time, and didn’t even try to hide the relief that washed over her face when Lexi got up to leave. That night, when Cassie asked her sister what was up with Rue, Lexi couldn’t bring herself to spread her mom’s lies, so she answered that Rue was feeling depressed again. She just hoped she hadn’t been sent back to rehab.

After that, time passed so slowly Lexi felt like she could touch the seconds vividly hanging in the air. She couldn’t focus in school, she couldn’t sleep at night, she wasn’t hungry, she missed Rue. After a few days, she noticed that Jules hadn’t been to school either, but didn’t think much of it, other than maybe “Good riddance bitch”. Lexi didn’t like Jules. It was safe to say she even hated her. She thought of Jules as a selfish person and really couldn’t understand what made Rue so obviously obsessed with her. The only thing Jules had for her was her charisma, which even Lexi couldn’t deny. But instead of finding it charming, Lexi thought it was annoying. The way she dressed, the makeup she wore, how she talked, everything was to Lexi just a strategy that Jules used to stand out and make everyone look at her, talk about her. Jules was just a shallow person, who did not care about anything but her. Rue really deserved way better than what Jules had to offer. However, Lexi couldn’t say she was surprised when the two of them had started hanging out together at the beginning of the school year. Jules, dressed up to school just like she would for a Sailor Moon cosplay, so cheerful and bubbly, was the exact polar opposite of Rue, who was quiet and wore clothes whose colors were matching the walls. Of course would Rue be attracted to someone so different from her. Jules was like this foreign exotic country you were at first so excited to travel to, but found yourself being annoyed with when you stayed there too long, always comparing it to home and to all the things you missed. Rue would get over her crush, Lexi could tell. It was just a matter of time, and Lexi had always been patient, so she didn’t mind. However, after a couple of weeks, Lexi began to think that it had lasted long enough, could Rue open her eyes to Jules’ true nature already ? Their friendship also meant that Lexi had to suffer countless painful moments with the pair, whether they’d be as trivial as having their lunches together at school, or when Lexi was invited to their dates, like that one time the three of them had gone roller skating. Lexi couldn’t stand such a close up at their relationship. She knew Rue like a sister and could see how head over heels she was for Jules. Actually you didn’t even need to know Rue that well to notice it, it was painfully obvious to everybody else. Except maybe for Jules, who always seemed to play dumb on purpose. When they had gone skating together, Lexi decided it was time she confronted Jules. She was tired of the game she was playing.

“It’s because of you, you know ?” 

Jules turned to Lexi, frowning.

“What is ?” she asked, almost surprised that Lexi was actually talking to her, because that had never happened.

“Rue feeling so good lately, her sobriety, all that. It’s because of you.”

Jules didn’t answer. She didn’t say she knew, or she understood what kind of responsibility came with it. She just smiled and skated away. How typical of her, Lexi thought. Sometimes she forced herself to try and see Jules through Rue’s eyes to maybe find what made her so lovable. She never succeeded. She didn’t like being put in this situation. Lexi wasn’t mean, she was the opposite. She was polite, helpful, she usually liked to see the best in people. That jealous passive-aggressive bitchiness really wasn’t like her, but she couldn’t help it. Jules simply got on her nerves like no one else could. Her obliviousness, that was so obviously fake, made Lexi mad. It was like Jules never accepted nothing in life but the fun and the easy. She couldn’t hear that Rue wasn’t like any other girl, she had issues, and you couldn’t come and go into her life and pretend like it wouldn’t affect her. But no, Jules was above all this, if something upset her she just skated away so that she wouldn’t have to listen. How could she be so blatantly careless ? It wasn’t cute at all, it was actually dangerous and proved she ultimately didn’t care enough for Rue to make the effort of understanding that, for once in her life, everything was not about her. 

“Hey Lex! Are you having fun ?” Rue asked, not even stopping in her tracks, swaying on the roller rink.

She seemed so happy, that Lexie just smiled back and said she was, indeed, having fun. She didn’t know how to bring up the subject. She was afraid that Rue would get mad at her, or simply wouldn’t understand where Lexi was coming from. Rue had a tendency to blind herself from anything she didn’t want to see. In that way she actually shared a characteristic with Jules. However, contrary to Jules, Rue didn’t blind herself on purpose, she just repeated the mistake to think everything that made her happy had to be good for her. Of course it wasn’t the truth, drugs obviously weren’t good for her and, even if it was maybe a bit extreme to think so, Lexi truly believed Jules wasn’t either. She had that gut feeling that things wouldn't end well and, in all the scenarios she made, it always ended up being Jules’ fault. Of course she didn’t want Rue to suffer, but at this point, it just seemed inevitable. Lexi looked at Rue’s direction, skating hand in hand with Jules. She closed her eyes for a second and pictured she was the one holding Rue’s hand. These kinds of thoughts made her cheeks warm and made her so embarrassed she usually forbade herself to have them in public. These sorts of fantasies never took place outside of her bedroom walls. But for now, she just wished she could erase Jules from that skating rink and, in a broader way, from Rue’s life. And here she was now, at the school cafeteria, noticing that Jules was finally gone. Lexi fought back the urge to cry. If there was one thing she had definitely never planned in all the scenarios she used to make, it was that the one day Jules would finally be gone, Rue would have disappeared too, and that Lexi would be left all alone.


	4. If I could be a different person, I would

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She always perceived herself in regards to Jules. Like she wasn’t her own person but rather Jules’ friend first, Jules’ creature.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with some Rue's pov. I hope you'll enjoy :)

One time, a few days after the winter formal and Jules’ departure, Rue heard the voice of Lexi coming from the kitchen. She was talking to her mom, something about bringing homework or whatever. Rue was not sleeping but her room was in the dark. It had been in the dark for days now, and she had practically not left her bed since the day she had come home drunk and heartbroken. The curtains were pulled, even though it was like four in the afternoon, and every time her mom would come by she pretended she was asleep. Rue did not want to talk to her mom. However, she was grateful for her, for all the things she did for her, but mostly she was thankful for the fact that her mom knew when there was no point in asking. This was one of those times. Her mom respected that and had not asked any questions besides the basic ones you ask when someone seems to have gotten sick. “Did you get some sleep ? Are you hungry ? Is there anything I can do ?”. There wasn’t, and every time the question escaped her mom’s lips, she would always realize it was a silly thing to ask. Of course, her daughter had always been special. She did not feel things like others did, and even though there was nothing her mom wanted more than to be able to take her pain away from her, she knew she couldn’t. When she heard Lexi’s voice, Rue was lying in the dark of her bedroom. She had been watching Love Island for two days straight but turned the sound off as soon as she heard someone coming into the house. Rue was moved by Lexi’s gesture, which was especially nice considering she had been declining all of Lexi’s phone calls for a week now. Lexi truly was a dedicated friend. Rue hoped her mom wouldn’t give much away about what was happening, but then realized that she actually couldn’t in any way because she didn’t know what had happened. Rue was actually the only one who knew what was going on inside her head, and it was not like she was that much of a sharer.

The thing was that nothing went on in her head at the moment anyway. It was like she had turned her brain off, just like she could turn off the volume of the 46th episode of Love Island she had been watching. She didn’t want to think about anything, she just wanted to lay there and for the world to be completely silent. She liked having nothing to do, she liked that no one expected anything from her and that she was not forced to act normal, or worse, forced to go to school. Gia had come by her room a few times already. Rue didn’t want to be too cruel to her little sister so she didn’t pretend to be asleep like she did with her mom. Gia would sit at the end of her bed and extend her hand, Rue would grab it and let her sister squeeze her palm gently. She loved Gia so much, it was like she had always understood her, even better than their mom ever had. Rue’s mom did the best she could, but all she really did was acknowledge Rue’s difference and try to accommodate it, which was in itself already a lot. However she had never understood it. Rue felt like Gia could, but maybe she was wrong. They would just sit there in silence, hand in hand. There was nothing to say really. From time to time, Gia would break the silence and tell Rue about insignificant stuff that had happened to her over the day. She made Rue laugh. Rue would not say anything in return because it was not like she did anything of her days, except for the Love Island binging bits. Eventually, Gia would leave the room and Rue would bury her head in the pillow. She did not join her family for dinner. It felt too soon, too much, she would just eat snacks throughout the day whenever she felt like it. After a week of living like this, and maybe three days after Lexi had tried to visit her, Rue realized that, even if she really wanted to, she couldn’t go on like this forever. It was now almost Christmas, and she had still not heard from Jules. She proceeded to give herself a pep talk. She desperately needed to move on. Jules would not call, she hadn’t the morning following the formal, she hadn’t the following week either, and Rue knew she most definitely would never call in the future, whether that’d be a soon or far one, she would just never call, like at all. She was not even sure she wanted her to do so, because what could Jules possibly say that would make Rue feel better ? It would just be awkward, they would both try to laugh it away but really how could they ? Yeah, now she thought about it, Rue was glad Jules hadn’t called. At least it was honest, and it also didn’t give her false hopes. 

That night, when her mom entered her room, she sat in the bed. She didn’t feel like lying anymore, she was tired of it. Actually, she was tired as a whole. Despite having spent the week pretending to be asleep, she really hadn't slept at all in days.

“My baby” said her mom, putting her hand in Rue’s hair.

It was dirty and greasy, Rue hadn’t showered in a week. She never did when she felt depressed, it just did not make sense to her. In these times, it would always feel like her body was that dead rock which asked so much, which was so high-maintenance and for what ? She would not even brush her teeth. She really didn’t care. The only vital function she obliged was eating, because she liked the sound of her crunching while she watched TV. It was regular and familiar, it relaxed her. Rue looked up and realized her mom was crying. It made her heart sink. She hated putting her family through this. Sometimes she would even feel like her disease was even more of a burden that her dad’s cancer had been. And yet all of it was in her head. She was not physically hurting, it was not like she was actually sick. Like a real sickness that could be treated in a hospital, an illness you would know had an end to it. No, it was just the way she was, the way she would be her whole life. Her cheeks stayed dry, as much as she wanted to cry she couldn’t, she was too dehydrated to.

“Mom I’m so sorry” she whispered. Even though she knew her mom had never expected her to be sorry, she really was. She was not just saying, she had never been that sorry for anything in her life before.

“If I could be a different person, I would.”

Her mom didn’t answer. There was nothing to be said about it. It was what it was. Like many things in life were, actually. Rue had noticed they never mentioned her dad together. Like it was this big tragedy that couldn’t be talked about out loud. Like it was such a raw emotion that it would evaporate if they were to bring it up. It didn’t make her sad, but sometimes she wished she could just remember the good times without feeling like doing so amounted to denying the years of pain and agony her dad had gone through. So they just stayed quiet. She knew her mom was thinking of him right now, and she was doing the same. They shared this moment of remembrance in complete silence, grateful that they had understood each other without needing to talk. 

“He watches over you. Wherever you are, whatever you are going through, he’s there.” 

“I know.”

They could almost feel him physically in the room. It reminded Rue of that morning when she had felt the presence of Jules by her bed, when really she was already gone and hadn’t even called. 

“I feel like he’s here.”

“It’s because he is.”

They smiled at each other. Rue couldn’t think of anything that could have brought them together, and at the same time pulled them apart, like her dad’s passing had. She sometimes wondered what her life would have been like if he hadn’t died, if he was still here, not spiritually but like really here. She liked to entertain the thought that she would have been different, happier, more balanced, but she knew in her heart that she wouldn’t have. The condition she had was just something she had been born with, and not a phase she could ever grow out of. Her dad being gone sure had taken it to another level but, in the alternate reality in which he was still alive, it wasn’t like she was doing super good either. It seemed like either way she was doomed. She didn’t know if her mom felt the same way she did about her disease. She only hoped she knew that it was the most unfortunate shit that could have happened to her, and not an attitude she deliberately chose every morning to keep up. No one wanted more than her to be normal. At this point, that will to be normal was even almost pathological. The other side of the coin was that she didn’t feel like she had a personality of her own. If asked to describe Rue, the first thing that would come to most people would probably be her drug use. However, she herself couldn’t think of anything that defined her less than drugs did. Drugs weren’t who she was, they weren’t even what she enjoyed. She could even say she enjoyed watching Love Island more than she enjoyed drugs. And still, she had risked her life to take them, many times. She wasn’t stupid, sometimes she even deeply believed she wasn’t even suicidal either. There was a reason for her addiction. She loved the way drugs made her feel. Because of her condition, she had actually started a medical drug use even before she could try a recreational one. The results were the same, she loved both. She loved how numb drugs made her. She loved how the world went quiet and she could finally think, even if she always chose not to. She loved the way drugs made her see things, like nothing mattered, like she was authorized to not give a fuck about anything. Drugs made her carelessness valid. They told her she was right, and that the way she always had to force herself to think things were serious, when actually they weren’t, was the most understandable shit ever. Drugs made her feel understood, like it wasn’t her brain who had been broken all this time, but theirs. Drugs were in a sense her best friends. Until Jules came.

Rue had always been candid about the fact that she had never considered, not even for a second, stopping drugs before she met Jules. She hoped her mom would never know it because, after everything she had put her through, it was just obscene that Rue would choose to stop using solely because of a girl she didn’t know two weeks ago, and not for her mom and sister who were the ones that had carried her back from the dead. But still, the hard truth was that nothing else could have made her quit. She didn’t even quit for herself, she couldn’t care less about her own health, she quitted so that Jules would stay her friend, and she had made clear she wouldn’t if Rue were to keep doing drugs. Rue didn’t know at first what it would feel like to experience the world sober. It was actually the strangest thing. Like she had said to Fez that one night, she had been doing drugs for so long, that being sober actually felt like a new drug. She had always feared life sober would seem dull in comparison to what she had always known, but it was not like she used to take drugs for the thrill of it anyway. 

So here she went, living life without anything in her system. Her blood had never been this pure ever since she had turned thirteen, which she realized in retrospect was actually Gia’s age now, not to mention incredibly young. The first weeks, she went through the severe withdrawal she hadn’t experienced in rehab. The disadvantage was that she was now going through it on her own, instead of with people who would have known what she was living and could have offered her medical solutions and assistance to help her feel better. No, she had been sobering up all alone, sweating and shaking on her bed, getting up to throw bile up every half hour, wishing she was dead already. It had been hard. The hardest part having been to hide from her mom the symptoms of a withdrawal she was supposed to have dealt with weeks ago. She whined herself to sleep every night, and did the best she could every morning to look somewhat okay, or at least not particularly in pain. Eventually it passed and she then started to experience good old plain sobriety. It was weird. There was no other word which came to mind when Rue reminisced of that time of her life. She wouldn’t describe it as the bullshit the rehab facility had fed her up with when she first enrolled. She didn’t feel reborn, she didn’t feel like a new life was greeting her with open arms. She actually didn’t feel anything particular, except for that one sensation of strangeness she couldn’t shake off. Most of the time she felt bored, but not when she was with Jules though. However, Jules would sometimes be busy, she wouldn’t answer her texts or she would go visit her old friends over the weekend. Those would be the times when Rue felt kind of bored and at the same time overwhelmed. In these moments, she could almost remember what had made her do drugs in the first place. Not to show off, not to make her life exciting, but more simply to feel at home somewhere, to feel like she was spending time with an old friend that knew her better than almost everyone else has ever had. She didn’t break her promise though. She could have had, she most likely thought about it once or twice, but she never actually considered it or tried to act on these impulses. Yet it would have been so easy. She could have taken a pill or two while Jules was gone for the weekend and she would never have known. She would have met her the Monday morning, they would have biked to school together, and Jules would never have doubted her word or imagined how she had really spent her weekend. But Rue hadn’t. It wasn’t the person she wanted to be anymore, and at the same time she didn’t even know who she really wanted to be, or worse who she actually was. 

When she thought about the person she had become in the span of a few school weeks, she always perceived herself in regards to Jules. Like she wasn’t her own person but rather Jules’ friend first, Jules’ creature. And in a sense she truly was. When she had asked her to put a stop to her drug use, Jules had already begun to shape Rue to her convenience. It wasn’t like she made her a completely different person either. Some would even argue that Jules had had a positive influence on Rue and had changed her for the best, but still, that made Rue realize that her sense of self was desperately weak, especially compared to Jules’. Jules knew who she was, she had that aura that made people look up from their phones when she entered the room. She knew what she liked, she was confident in her style, and didn’t let anyone get under her skin or convince her she was dumb to like that band, or to wear that skirt. If she wanted to, she would just do it and it would feel right, right away. Jules was at that point of self-confidence and self-knowledge that she even knew nature had made a mistake when it had created her. Imagine knowing yourself that much, it was actually impressive. Rue, on the other hand, could not relate at all. She had never had a clear vision of who she was, or what she liked. She mostly didn’t care. Of course she had her preferences, she didn’t like chemistry but enjoyed learning foreign languages, she didn’t feel comfortable in a dress but loved to wear shorts, she liked everything symmetrical and despised cow milk, but those were mostly small things. She didn't have a big sense of self. For example, she didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life, and she even hated that phrase. She was lacking a purpose that Jules seemed to have naturally found. At first Rue didn’t really notice, but it grew more and more evident. Sometimes, Jules would make her talk about herself and she would be at loss of words. Jules talked about herself all the time, not in a narcissistic way, but just because she had so many interests and talked about all of them with a passion that both fascinated and intimidated Rue. Rue could never come close to that level of curiosity about the world. She loved to listen to Jules, but dreaded the times when Jules wanted her to do the same. She felt embarrassed and dumb, like she had had as a kid when her teacher had asked her in front of the whole grade what was her dream job and she didn’t have one. When she was eight, she had just lied and said some dumb job she didn’t even care about to be left alone, but now it was different, it wasn’t like she could lie to Jules about her interests. It made no sense. The problem was that Jules didn’t politely and gracefully leave it alone when she sensed that Rue was uncomfortable with the topic. On the contrary, she insisted and didn’t give up until Rue had confided something, anything, in her. Jules was particularly curious about Rue’s love life from before she had met Jules. Once again, Rue felt really awkward talking about it and always tried to brush it away. The truth was that there was nothing to be said about that. Rue had never been in love, like ever. She had never been in a relationship either, it had just never happened. She wasn’t actually embarrassed of it, since she was only seventeen, and also it didn’t mean she was a prude because she had lost her virginity a while back. It was just that it didn’t interest her. She had never met someone so fascinating that she wished she could spend every minute of every day with them. Until Jules. Of course she never said that, but she secretly hoped that Jules would read between the lines. She was not sure she did though, because Jules had never hinted at the fact that she knew what it was all about. Sure she was very tactile, she often told her she was beautiful, and there was an undeniable intimacy between them that Rue just knew wasn’t only in her mind. But at the same time, Jules had flirtatious ways with about anyone, so Rue didn’t really know when it actually meant something and when it didn’t. When Rue finally walked Jules through the history of her past sex life, Jules laughed. She couldn’t believe Rue. She even insisted :

“But is that really all ?”

Rue nodded. She was not ashamed of her body count, she didn’t even understand how it had become a thing and found it low-key sexist, but she knew Jules was not mocking her. She was just amazed at that one more difference between them. Jules had had countless sexual encounters and she had never made it a secret, even though she didn’t talk about that aspect of her life much, while Rue had barely ever seen another man naked. 

“But why ?” Jules asked, with tears of laughter in her eyes.

“I dunno” shrugged Rue. “It’s not that big of a deal anyway, is it ?”

Jules couldn’t reply, she was laughing too much. When she regained composure, her cheeks were bright red and her hair was flying in hectic ways all around her head. 

“I’m sorry for laughing. I mean, it’s not even funny” 

“It kinda is actually” Rue said with a dead voice, which made the statement even funnier. 

“You’re something else I swear.” 

And it was the only time they had ever talked about sex. Rue did try to ask Jules how many people she had been with, but while Jules wasn’t exactly lying, she seemed to always remain evasive on purpose. Rue didn’t actually care about Jules’ one-night-stands. They were probably meaningless and not worth mentioning. However, she did wonder about whether or not Jules had ever been like in love. Had she ever slept with a loved one by her side, held their hand, giggled at the mention of their name ? If she ever had, she had never told Rue, which made her think that maybe, just like her, she actually hadn’t. Therefore, Rue would often fantasize about having that kind of relationship with Jules. They would move in together, sleep in the same bed, hold hands in the streets. They would spend the rest of their lives together. And that daydream comforted her, it was the only expectation she had about the future, for Jules to stay by her side. And now that she was back in her messy depression room, struggling to get out of bed to celebrate Christmas with her family, she realized that “the rest of their lives” had actually turned into three months and a half. Maybe it was what your entire life was supposed to feel like when you were only seventeen.


End file.
